


slowly, and then all at once

by nire



Category: Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Falling In Love, Gap Filler, Gen, Light Angst, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Post-Spider-Man: Homecoming, Pre-Relationship, Pre-Spider-Man: Far From Home (Movie), Precious Peter Parker, sort of a ficlet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-22
Updated: 2019-07-22
Packaged: 2020-07-11 11:23:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19927279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nire/pseuds/nire
Summary: Five times Peter Parker's weird new sense thing that remains unnamed fails him when it comes to MJ, and one time it does warn him, but he ignores it.or,Peter Parker falls for Michelle Jones over thrown projectiles and other surprises.





	slowly, and then all at once

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hunter_forager](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hunter_forager/gifts).



> This is for hunter_forager, as I am nothing but a dutiful friend. I hope you like it, short though it may be.
> 
> The title is from John Green, because I'm unoriginal.
> 
> Enjoy!

**One.**

Peter doesn’t know how to explain _it—_ not when he doesn’t know exactly what _it_ is. All he knows is that people can’t throw things at him without him instinctively catching or dodging it, and that’s evolved into some sort of game whose contestants are mainly Flash, occasionally the rest of the Academic Decathlon team except for MJ because she says it’s dumb, and once, just once, Mr. Harrington. That last one, he doesn’t really intend to throw anything at Peter. Rather, Mr. Harrington slips in Peter’s general direction and Peter side-steps away, and Mr. Harrington faceplants into the floor.

Peter still apologizes two weeks later.

The great thing about _it_ is that he can somehow sense whether the object is innocuous enough to be caught—keychains, pencils, light notebooks—or something Peter Parker, Scrawny Nerd should not be able to catch, like, again, Mr. Harrington.

Until, during Spanish, he feels something light and pointy hit his cheek.

It’s a paper airplane. Peter unfolds it, and on it is MJ’s self-portrait, looking smugger than ever, both hands carrying bags with dollar signs on them. There’s a caption scrawled underneath: _when I win the pool for managing to throw something at you._

Peter rubs his cheek absently, more out of incredulity than anything else, then looks up to where MJ is sitting. She’s got her phone out, clearly recording—in landscape, because she’s not a monster—and her other hand brandishes a thumbs-up at him.

He mouths, “ _There’s a betting pool?_ ”

A grin grows on her face, and she mouths, “ _Three hundred and fifty,_ ” while her hand spells out the numbers.

There’s no way Peter is going to let MJ just take three hundred and fifty dollars from throwing a paper airplane at him. He scribbles, “ _I better get a cut_ ” on the paper airplane, re-folds it, and throws it at MJ.

 _“_ _¡_ _Senõr Parker!”_

Later, when the Senõra Morales is done chewing him up, Peter looks at his phone. A new text from MJ, saying, _relax, I’ll get you something nice._

* * *

**Two.**

The week after, at lunch, Peter finds out what MJ’s _something nice_ is when it hits the back of his head. It’s a bundle of fluffy white, brown, and orange.

It’s a porg onesie. Because of course it is.

Peter says, “What.”

“Oh, wow,” MJ drawls, plopping down next to him. She’s dropped all pretense that she doesn’t sit with them. Now she sits next to Peter, and Peter next to Ned, and then she and Ned would speak with each other over Peter, just because. “See that, Ned? I broke him. You can throw things at Peter Parker now.”

“I am not broken,” Peter says, elbowing MJ’s side. She’s all bones the way gangly teens who just recently hit growth spurts are, but it’s not unpleasant. Peter files that information away in the _never think about ever again_ folder. He stands, raises his voice, and calls out, “Hey, Flash! Throw something at me!”

Flash throws a still-full coffee cup, and it misses Peter by two feet. Really, he doesn’t have to move at all. It falls by the feet of a group of seniors, and they yell, and they’re this close to a food fight except Coach Wilson blows his whistle and the entire cafeteria has to drop all brandished foodstuff to cover their ears.

Peter sits back down. “Okay, I know that’s not the best example, but.”

“Alright, whatever. I guess you don’t want your cut of the bet, then,” she says, reaching towards the onesie.

Peter pulls it away from her evil clutches. “No. Gimme.” He pauses. “Why a onesie?” He doesn’t ask why a porg. He’s not a complete idiot.

“With the whole Homecoming thing, your odds of getting any companionship at night has dropped to zero. No one wants a boy who ditched his date at Homecoming, _especially_ if said date is Liz Allan. So, here’s something to keep you warm at night.”

“First of all, never say companionship at night again. Gross. Second of all, ouch. And third of all, excuse you, but Ned is a great cuddler.”

“I got your back, bro,” Ned says, and they high-five.

“Thanks, dude. You know how much I like being the little spoon.”

“Everyone likes to be the little spoon. It makes you feel safe.”

“Okay, this?” MJ says, waggling her fingers between Ned and Peter. “This is cute as fuck, but also giving everyone the wrong idea.”

Peter grins at MJ, pulling up the hood of the onesie over his head. The rest of it dangles back like a cape. “Sorry, what? I can’t hear you. I’ve got this great onesie on. It’s so warm.”

MJ rolls her eyes, opens her book of the day, and that’s the end of it.

* * *

**Three.**

The onesie is the greatest thing Peter’s ever got in his life. Including the suit from Mr. Stark. Alright, the suit is pretty great, but it’s not a porg.

No, Peter doesn’t say this out loud, because then Mr. Stark would actually make his suit porg-patterned, and no matter how awesome that would be, Peter thinks Spider-Man would lose any dignity he has left. Peter does, however, wear the porg onesie around in Mr. Stark’s stupidly cold lab. It covers his hands _and_ feet, which for all Peter cares qualifies it for proper lab wear, not that Mr. Stark ever cares about that.

Peter’s puttering about in the lab, toying with a new model of web-shooter that would either implode or be his finest work, when Mr. Stark descends from the open ceiling in his suit. The facial plate peels away and he looks at Peter for a long few seconds before finally saying, “Porg? Really?”

Peter shrivels up, hugging the onesie to himself even though he’s wearing it, and hisses like a cat. “They’re cute.”

Mr. Stark opens his mouth, then closes it. “You know what, don’t tell me.”

Peter crosses his arms. “Fine. I won’t.”

“By the way, we gotta do some tests on your abilities. You said it’s been fluctuating?”

“The thingy—”

“Thingy.”

“You know, that thing where I can catch things people throw at me!” Peter should probably start brainstorming for a name. He can’t call it _it,_ like the clown movie, or thingy, because even he knows that sounds dumb. The Force? Nah. Spider-Man’s already dubiously illegal anyway under the Sokovia Accords. No need to add copyright infringement to the charges.

“Last time you said it’s an extension of your heightened senses.”

“Well, I thought so too, but lately people have been throwing things at me.”

Mr. Stark pinches the bridge of his nose, his eyes scrunched shut behind the tinted glasses. “Kid, we need to learn about qualifying your nouns.”

“Things. Like a paper airplane. And this onesie.”

“And people?”

This, for reasons unknown to Peter, makes him embarrassed. “It’s one person. My friend, MJ.”

A slow, easy grin spreads on Mr. Stark’s face. “Oh, right, the one you like.”

“I do _not_ like MJ. I mean I do, but not like that.” That tastes like a lie, somehow. Why?

“Right. So, any other reason why she can get under your radar?”

“Um.” _Radar_ , that sounds nice. Spider-radar. Spy-dar?

A wrench flies towards Peter. He side-steps it and catches it with one hand. “What the fuck, Mr. Stark!”

“Language.” He throws another wrench.

Peter smacks it out of the air with the wrench he’s holding. “Is this a test?”

“Well, evidently your _thingy_ still works.”

“I could’ve told you that. Just last night a guy threw a Molotov at me and I dodged it.”

“Homework,” Mr. Stark declares, even though this is obviously not a real internship, much less a class. Peter is wearing a porg onesie. Mr. Stark just threw two wrenches at Peter. No self-respecting government would ever certify this activity as remotely educational. “Find out how this girl sneaks up on you.”

“She doesn’t sneak up on me. She just threw two things at me, that’s all.”

“Submit a report next week.”

Peter spends the next six days keeping his guard up, and it works, somehow. He catches the many things MJ throws at him. He dodges the dangerous implements thrown by various criminals at night. Peter rules.

Peter is also very, very tired. Keeping his senses on max for one hundred and forty-four hours straight takes a toll on his mental and physical energy, and by the seventh day, not only Peter knows all sorts of dating gossip in his school and has seen things he’d much rather un-see, he is also in an odd zombie state where it feels like he’s submerged in water.

“Sup, Parker.”

Peter squeals, nearly jumps to the ceiling, catching himself on the last split-second and sticking his toes to the floor—these new sneakers from Mr. Stark are made of the same material of Peter’s suit, enabling him to stick to surfaces easily, and if that is not a blessing then Peter will eat his shoes, yes these shoes—and so the momentum of him jerking himself upward is broken by the stubborn sticking of tiptoes to the floor, and for one suspended moment he feels like a grotesque imitation of a ballerina with his arms all askew, and finally, inevitably, he collapses on the floor.

MJ watches him. “Uh.” She crouches. “Pete?”

Peter gets up and starts picking up his things, but not before he throws an incredulous look at MJ and asks, “Did you just sneak up on me?”

“Not intentionally?”

“Fuck.”

* * *

**Four.**

Peter just accepts the inevitability of MJ being his one blind spot, and he tries not to think about it too much.

Maybe, he reasons, it’s like Ned and May. When they respectively found out about his secret identity, they essentially snuck up to him, right? Except this was before he developed the Par-Quirk—no, that name is even worse than Spy-dar—and lately, nothing could sneak up on him. Not even Black Widow, and she was so pissed at Peter for that.

So, if not even Natalia Alianovna Romanova—yes, Peter read her leaked SHIELD file because he’s a fanboy and he admits it—can’t even sneak up on him, what is up with MJ?

Briefly, he entertains the idea of MJ being a more dangerous spy than the Black Widow, but—

It can’t be it. MJ’s too young. In five years, maybe, but now?

Another paper airplane hits his cheek. This has been happening more often, now, and MJ never gets caught. Ever. He unfolds it. It’s a sketch of him in his moment of glory: when he nearly jumped to the ceiling but ended up falling marionette-style. In this rendition, he wears a tutu and a small tiara.

He thinks he looks quite cute, if he may say so himself.

* * *

**Five.**

He can’t remember how he got here. The sky is orange, and the ankle-deep water spanning endlessly everywhere reflects that color, or maybe it’s the other way around. He isn’t sure. He’s alone. He’s cold. He’s got a big, old, familiar hoodie, which smells like home and burnt food, around his tiny, frail frame. He wraps it around him tighter. The hoodie is now white and brown and fluffy and goes down to his feet, and underneath it, he feels bigger. More solid. His feet are under the water, and they should be wet, but it’s all warm. He should remember this new hoodie, he thinks. He can’t.

“Hi,” he hears behind him.

He jumps and turns. “You surprised me,” he says.

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to sneak up on you.” She’s tall. Taller than him, but just as skinny. She has frizzy brown hair and paint-splattered jeans overalls and he thinks she looks like a children’s book character, but his brain hurts when he tries to remember which character.

“It’s okay,” he says. “What’s your name?”

The tiniest crease appears between her eyebrows. “I don’t know. Do you know yours?”

He shakes his head. “I can’t remember. I’m trying, but.”

She hums. “Let’s find the others.”

“Others?”

“Yes. They’re also here.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know, but let’s go. Come on.” She takes his hand. Palm to palm, fingers between fingers, their hands fit. She pulls him, and though the direction she takes him is just the same as any other, really, just endless expanse of orange, he trusts her.

They walk together.

* * *

**And one.**

When they all Blip back, five years have passed. The air is fresher, everyone else looks at least a decade older, if not more, and homes have been vacated and moved in and as a result, the lot of them gets to sleep in shelters and quickly transformed gymnasiums and places of worship.

When Peter arrives after the war, May has been staying in a mosque with Ned’s family and a bunch of other displaced people. He stays there and eats a small army’s share of Mediterranean food, and no one is angry at him for it. They all encourage him. Welcome back, they say. It was so quiet without all of you here, they say. Peter pretends the shock is what rattles him, rubs his bloodshot eyes with the back of his hand, and every time someone asks him if he remembers anything, he tries to. He can’t. There’s a gaping emptiness where there should be something.

He describes it as just—sudden. Suddenly, he’s back. He doesn’t remember anything other than turning partway to dust, he says, then he’s suddenly just there again.

That’s the version everyone says, anyway, and it’s close enough to Peter’s truth.

At night, he breaks into the school and just sits on the roof.

That’s where MJ finds him. This time, she makes enough noise rattling the chains that should be keeping the rooftop door closed, and so he isn’t surprised when she plops down next to him.

“Hey,” she says. She looks the same, just a little bit more haunted. Not unlike everyone else.

“Hey,” he says.

“Do you remember anything?” she asks, point-blank.

That’s when _it_ , or the thingy, or whatever silly name he used to call the sense, blared loud. It has been quiet, ever since the war, but now it might as well be screaming into his ear, _danger danger danger._ He licks his chapped lips. “No,” he says.

She hums absently. Something about it connects, something—

 _Run, run, run._ “I tried, but I can’t.”

That’s when she looks at him— _DANGER—_ properly at him, not in his general direction, and their eyes meet. There’s the slightest crease between her brows—that, too, is a soft _beware_ —and she asks, “You tried?”

Peter scrunches his eyes shut. Shut up, he tells _it_ , please just stop.

For some unknown reason, it does.

He opens his eyes, and there MJ still is, waiting, patient. He says, slowly, “I was—hurt, pretty badly, some years ago, and they had to operate on me.” It’s actually a few months before the war, but the specifics don’t matter. “They gave me general anesthesia. I remember counting down from ten, then I remember waking up, but it’s not like—it’s not like sleeping. You remember sleeping. This is just—nothing. Like someone gouged away a part of my brain where the memories of that time I was in surgery. I get why it theoretically happens. The anesthesia also prevents the creation of new memory, so that makes sense, but that doesn’t stop it from bothering me.”

MJ nods, slowly. “It’s like you simply don’t exist in that gap.”

“ _Yes,_ ” Peter admits, an exhale of more than air.

MJ lies down, her eyes now set on the absurdly starry sky of Queens. “But you exist now. Oh, a comet.”

Peter looks up, and there it is. It could also be a satellite entering atmosphere, but who’s he to dispute the stars? “Make a wish?” he offers, tentatively.

He can’t see it, in the darkness, but he can almost hear her roll her eyes. “You are such a dork.”

When they go back—she to a shelter, him to the mosque—they walk side by side, and their hands almost touch.

Neither really moves closer.

Neither moves away either.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading. I hope you like it! Tell me what you think in the comments, or maybe check out my ancient Spideychelle fics, or my more recent and very much different Game of Thrones fic if that's also your jam, and say hi to me on nire-the-mithridatist dot tumblr dot com.


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